Abstract   Author: Annika Sjögren Arvidson Title: The reflective leadership role in social service organizations   Supervisor: Anders Giertz Assessor: Jan Petersson     I have studied the leadership role of unit managers in social service organizations and their relationship to the concept of reflective approach. I started from a curiosity about how and if unit managers within social services use the concept reflective approach in their leadership role, and how their organizations look upon this and what the consequences are. If in the long term, this affects the individual receiving assistance. All the interviewed persons come from different places, services and organizations. The study is qualitative, with a number of interviews conducted with unit managers. The results show that the concept of reflective approach is used in different ways, and it does not depend on the type of organization whether or not it is used. It could also make a difference for the individual receiving assistance.

The present study used action research with youth to investigate and create radio shows about the role place has played in maintaining the identities of activists committed to social and ecological justice. The research focused on whether youth involvement in a participatory, critical learning experience of creating radio shows interviewing activists from their community helped those students to develop and maintain their own activist identity and community. The study also examined other aspects of the critical learning process and conditions of the radio studio that affected their identity. Finally, the study asked if the youth participants planned to take any steps to maintain their activism beyond the study. In addressing these questions of activist identity in relation to place, the study is presented as three mini-studies. Mini-study 1 addresses how the experienced activists who were interviewed by youth described the role of material places in enabling and supporting their activism, the final product of which is two radio shows. Four inductively generated, theoretical categories are presented to capture the experienced activists’ descriptions of place including relationality, the act of making place, normalizing transgression in everyday life, and using power. Mini-study 2 addresses how the youth participants perceived the process of interviewing activists on a radio show, as well as other aspects of making radio shows including the radio studio as having contributed to their own activist identities. It also looks at the steps, if any, the youth had planned to stay active beyond the study. Profiles of each youth participant are presented to represent their perceptions of creating radio shows. Mini-study 3 invites the reader on my self-reflexive journey as an educator committed to social and ecological justice including reflections on existing practice in schools, place and youth identity, collective spaces for agency, intergenerational mentoring, slow pedagogy and mindfulness, radio as a pedagogical tool, and my own style of teaching.

Titel: Ensam, vacker och lite avklädd – en undersökning av kvinnligt och manligt i romantiska komedier och actionfilmer Författare: Aila Stefansdotter-Franck och Ida Åhlén Kurs, termin och år: Vetenskaplig rapport C, HT 2013 Antal ord i uppsatsen: 20 457 Problemformulering och syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur ofta och hur kvinnor respektive män gestaltas i de fyra actionfilmer och fyra romantiska komedier som setts av flest personer på svenska biografer under 2013 Metod och material: Metodtriangulering med kvantitativ och kvalitativ innehållsanalys, av ett strukturerat urval bland de filmer som setts mest på bio i Sverige under 2013. Huvudresultat: Könsfördelningen är mer ojämn i actionfilmerna – kvinnorna utgör 21 procent av karaktärerna, männen 79 procent – än i de romantiska komedierna, där fördelningen är 45 kvinnor och 55 män. Kvinnorna är färre än männen i alla filmer utom en, samma film är även den enda film där en kvinna är den första karaktären att tala. Även om könsfördelningen är relativt jämställd gestaltas kvinnor med stereotypt i romantiska komedier. Männen gestaltas mer stereotypt i actionfilmer, men där utgör kvinnorna en väldigt liten del av karaktärerna – i ett fall endast en kvinna bland 29 män. Fem av åtta filmer klarar en modifierad version av Bechdeltestet – en actionfilm och alla fyra romantiska komedier. Dock talar kvinnorna i många fall om könsstereotypa ämnen, som exempelvis ålder eller utseende, eller så har de svårt att hålla sams. Det är en tydligt ojämn könsfördelning vad gäller personer bakom kameran, där kvinnor utgör 24 procent. I personer bakom kameran är regissörer, manusförfattare och producenter inräknade. Kvinnorna utgör dock en större andel bland personer bakom kameran i romantiska komedier än i actionfilmer.Kvinnorna är totalt sett färre och mer stereotypt gestaltade. De bedöms i större utsträckning än männen efter sitt utseende, är mer avklädda och männen tillåts vara äldre. Nyckelord: Action, dagordningsteori, film, genus, gestaltning, massmedier, påverkan, romantisk komedi

Although some individuals excel during the transition from high school to university, many struggle to adjust and experience repeated failures. To facilitate academic adjustment in those most at-risk of failure, vulnerable students were identified based on their pre-existing levels of preoccupation with failure (PWF; low, high) and primary control (PC; low, high). These factors were combined to create four distinct psychosocial typologies (e.g., low PWF, low PC). Students were subsequently presented with Attributional Retraining (AR), a control-enhancing treatment intervention. An AR (no- AR, AR) by group (failure-acceptors, failure-ruminators, achievement-oriented, over- strivers) 2 x 4 pre-post, quasi-experimental treatment design examined longitudinal differences in causal attributions, achievement emotions, PC, and achievement outcomes. AR encouraged all students to de-emphasize two uncontrollable attributions for failure and emphasize a controllable attribution. Most interestingly, AR was particularly beneficial for at-risk students. Notably, only failure-acceptors (low PWF, low PC) and failure-ruminators (high PWF, low PC) receiving AR reported more adaptive activity emotions and higher PC than their no-AR peers. For only failure-ruminators, those in the AR condition exhibited more adaptive attribution-related emotions than their no-AR peers. Conversely, only failure-acceptors receiving AR had higher grade point averages and fewer voluntary withdrawals than their no-AR counterparts. Results suggest the efficacy of AR in facilitating functional causal thinking for all students, whereas they also underscore  AR’s  value in promoting adaptive emotions, PC, and academic achievement for failure-prone students.

This study responds to the critical question: How could I as an educational leader in Manitoba improve educational outcomes for students who are the least privileged in society? I envisioned a leadership development program which would enhance the ability of teacher leaders to facilitate change from within schools. This critical action research study aimed to: 1) identify the knowledge, skills and dispositions teacher leaders required to be agents of change in educational contexts; 2) identify the learning processes that developed agency; and 3) determine the impact of a co-constructed community on teachers who participated in the leadership development program. As a participant-researcher I facilitated six full-day leadership development sessions with a cohort of nine teacher leaders committed to social justice. Qualitative data sources which captured the processes influencing teacher leader development included: videotapes of focus groups and leadership development sessions; participants’ and researcher’s written reflections, journals and action research cycles; pilot test feedback forms, self-assessment and peer reflection instruments; audio-recorded mentoring conversations; and curricular and design process notes. Data analysis was ongoing, cyclical and reflexive; it included content and thematic analysis, “themeing” (Saldaña, 2013, p. 175), and crystallization across multiple sets of data. Research outcomes include the creation of the Social Justice Teacher Leadership Self-Assessment (SJTLSA) and Peer Reflection (SJTLPR) tools offered for use in various educational contexts to promote self-knowledge, reflection and dialogue. A theory-in-context is proposed which synthesizes the knowledge, skills, dispositions and agency of teacher leaders for social justice. Seven elements were found to promote critical reflection and agency of teacher leaders: action research, learning-focused conversations, dialogue, self-assessment, peer feedback, journals and critical reflection. The co-constructed community contributed to participants’ feelings of acceptance, validation, belonging and challenge. A three phase modular leadership development model is proposed which summarizes the design, enactment and outcomes of the leadership development sessions. Positive outcomes for teacher leader participants were transformative experiences, frameworks for action and a community to support sustained engagement. The iris is used metaphorically to describe the catalytic potential of the leadership development sessions. Implications of the study for teacher leaders, facilitators of adult learning, theory and future research are identified.

Resistance to rectifying local injustice and methods of addressing such resistance are often studied in terms of motivational barriers (e.g., system justification, Jost & Banaji, 2004). I propose that a cognitive mechanism called construal level may also play an important role. Construal level refers to whether people are thinking concretely or abstractly. For example, if considering the act of locking a door, one might construe the behavior as putting a key in a lock (a concrete construal) or as securing a house (an abstract construal). Construal level theory (Liberman & Trope, 1998) states that people think concretely about near events and thinking concretely makes people more concerned about feasibility (e.g., “Is it affordable?”), whereas thinking abstractly makes people more concerned about morality (Eyal, Liberman, & Trope, 2008). Thus, inducing abstract thinking might increase support for addressing local injustice. I assessed this novel proposal in two experimental studies that focused on the lack of adequate water services in First Nations and included measures of social action as dependent variables. In Study 1 (n = 151 White Canadian undergraduates; 44% women), participants thought about either a local or distant injustice. I hypothesized participants would support the local injustice less as they would think more concretely and thus be more concerned with feasibility and less concerned with morality; no differences emerged (p’s > .36, d’s < .15). In Study 2 (n = 166 White Canadian undergraduates; 66% women), I directly manipulated construal level and had all participants consider a local injustice. People led to think abstractly (vs. concretely) were more supportive of addressing injustice because they were more morally outraged, experienced more empathy, and thought the problem was easier to solve, 95% CI = [0.22, 0.98]. Thus, the results suggest that induced abstract thinking may be an effective tool for achieving local social change.

The purpose of this research was to explore how a medium-sized, not-for-profit social services organization could strategically engage culturally diverse women in Canada between the ages of 30-50 in activities that would help to achieve the organization's strategic objectives. Research was related to determining the current state of engaging this population and the actions SOS could take to enhance engagement. Action research involved staff, volunteers, donors and representatives of other organizations. Research findings revealed a connection between engaging stakeholders and growing the organization, in particular engagement through dialogue on issues associated with orphaned and abandoned children using methods that address the diverse preferences of this population. Recommendations included targeting corporate marketing and communication efforts to create meaningful interactions, creating messages centred on issues, and developing organizational capacity to strategically plan and manage this kind of stakeholder engagement. This study was of minimal risk and adhered to RRU Ethical Guidelines.

In this thesis, I apply teleofunctionalism to a current debate concerning the normativity of practical rationality. Assuming teleofunctionalism is the correct theory of mental phenomena, I argue that it can provide a promising account of the normativity of practical rationality. This claim is motivated by the idea that a capacity to represent internal states, external states, and relations between these states as reasons for action has a teleofunction, and is thus a source of normativity. This teleofunction is marked by a distinctive causal role that reason-representation plays in action. Although I argue that this capacity developed out of processes of biological natural selection, the content of representations of reasons for action produced by the mechanisms underlying this capacity need not be determined solely by biological selection. In an effort to naturalize normativity in this way, I discuss the relation between biological-functional normativity and the normativity of rationality itself.

Wolfaardt (1995) states that organizations in South Africa are experiencing immense pressure to implement affirmative action due to political, socio-economic and social factors. Many of these organizations however, are still persisting with the status quo. Affirmative action has been incorporated into the philosophies and values of organizations, yet little progress has been made to this effect. The Anncron Clinic is one of more than 80 private hospitals and clinics of Afrox Healthcare Ltd, which aims to make employees in the hospital more representative of the community within which it is functioning. Affirmative action and equal job opportunity programs are implemented at the Anncron Clinic, but the outcome of the implementation of these programs is perceived to have a negative effect on productivity and mutual personnel relationships. The aim of this study was to determine the experiences of affirmative action of a private hospital's staff members. The researcher made use of an exploratory research design which aided him through the various stages of the research. This research helped the researcher in determining and understanding the experiences of affirmative action of the Anncron Clinic's staff members. A sample was drawn by selecting a group of six individuals from the services department. The total number of respondents was 15, which make up 8,6% of the Anncron Clinic's 174 employees. Various themes have been identified which influence employees of the &on Clinic's experience of affirmative action. These themes include pressure, suspicion, motivation, frustration, the behaviour of doctors, and management. Recommendations are presented regarding the acceptance of affirmative action in the Anncron Clinic. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.

Article 21 of the Insolvency Act states that the estate of the solvent spouse transfers to the curator of the insolvent spouse's sequestrated estate. The solvent spouse then has the burden to request the release of property vested in the curator of the insolvent estate. In accordance with Article 21(2), the spouse is required to prove a lawful title on the property. Should the spouse be able to prove a lawful title on the property, the curator is obligated to release the property. Although the constitutionality of this temporarily "deprivation" of the solvent spouse of her rights has already been confirmed by the Constitutional Court; it imposes drastic limitations to his/ her rights. The Insolvency Act does not incorporate procedural measures by means of which the curator has to establish whether the solvent spouse has exempted his/ her from the proof burden. In the same breath, the Constitution and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act warrant that "everyone has the right to administrative action that is lawful. reasonable and procedurally fair." If the curator's actions, in accordance with Article 21. conform to the administrative procedures as set out in the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, the spouse shall be entitled to administrative actions which are procedurally fair as concluded within the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act. The conclusion is proof that the actions of the curator, in accordance with Article 21 of the Insolvency Act, is indeed administrative by nature and that the solvent spouse has the right to administrative actions which is procedurally fair as prescribed in the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, as well as the right to reasons for not being granted the release of property. / Thesis (LL.M. (Estate Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.